Thursday, January 4, 2018

Thursday open line

Headlines for January 4, 2017 include Attorney General Jeff Sessions' rescinding of an Obama-era memo that stopped the crackdown on legal pot, the disbanding of Trump's voter integrity commission and the Little Rock Police Department's new community policing tactics that some residents describe as "harassment."

More by Jordan Little

The Times is looking for Arkansas’s top dog. The primo pooch. The ultimate mutt. The peerless purebred. Good dog! Is that your dog? Fill out this quick form to participate in Arkansas Times Greatest Dog in Arkansas contest. Then the public will decide!

In this week’s episode, Antwan Phillips and guest host Kendra Pruitt provide perspective and conversation on the Arkansas Chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign and on the future structure of the LRSD. We discussed a proposed city ordinance to require LRPD to make marijuana arrests a low priority offense with our guests attorney Omavi Shakur and Rev. Ryan D. Davis.

In this week's edition of our hit new podcast, "The Conversation," host Matt Price interviews ATLA President Jesse Gibson. Jesse and Matt discuss Issue 1 about tort reform and the nursing home industries role.

KARK/Fox 16's push to do something about Little Rock violence includes a spotlight on people trying to make a difference — in this episode Antwan Phillips, a lawyer at Wright, Lindsey and Jennings.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson apparently felt the burn from KARK's exclusive Tuesday night on his plans to cut state support of War Memorial Stadium in half beginning July 1, 2018. He has a so-far secret plan to make the stadium self-sustaining. We bet that doesn't include state support.

UAMS, pressed by financial problems for several years, told the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees today that it had a $1.5 billion operating budget that doesn't call for deficit spending.

Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Bart Virden of Morrilton, who narrowly survived attack ads by an outside partisan group supporting his opponent for re-election to a nonpartisan seat, doesn't intend to let the matter drop.

Do what Donald Trump says or leave the country. Is that the embodiment of the 1st Amendment or what?

KARK/Fox 16 reports that Little Rock police have identified skeletal remains found Tuesday in a west Little Rock park as those of Ebby Steppach, the 17-year-old who's been missing since her car was found in that park abandoned in 2015.

Enjoy these photos from today's dedication and re-installation of a new Ten Commandments monument. The first iteration of the monument was installed last June but destroyed within the next 24 hours when it was rammed by a man in a Dodge Dart.